core progress for reading

Integral components of Renaissance Star Early Literacy® and Renaissance Star Reading®

Core Progress® for Reading Empirically validated learning progressions

WHITE PAPER | JULY 2013

All logos, designs, and brand names for Renaissance Learning’s products and services, including but not limited to 2Know!, Accelerated Math, Accelerated Reader, AccelScan, AccelTest, AR, ATOS, Core Progress, DEEP, English in a Flash, KeyWords, Learnalytics, MathFacts in a Flash, NEO, Renaissance Home Connect, Renaissance Learning, Renaissance Place Real Time, Renaissance School Excellence, Renaissance Training Center, STAR, STAR Early Literacy, STAR Math, STAR Reading, STAR Reading Spanish, Successful Reader, and Subtext are trademarks of Renaissance Learning, Inc., and its subsidiaries, registered, common law, or pending registration in the United States and other countries. All other product and company names should be considered the property of their respective companies and organizations. © 2013 by Renaissance Learning, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

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ContentsExecutive Summary .............................................................................................................................................. iii

Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 1

What are learning progressions? ......................................................................................................................... 2

Stage One: The development of Core Progress for Reading ............................................................................... 3

Stage Two: Early literacy skills added into Core Progress for Reading ............................................................... 8

Mapping Core Progress for Reading to the Common Core State Standards .................................................... 10

Stage Three: Building a new learning progression specifically for the Common Core State Standards ........... 12

Core Progress: An integral component of STAR Reading Enterprise and STAR Early Literacy Enterprise ....... 14

Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................................... 20

References ......................................................................................................................................................... 35 Appendices

Core Progress for Reading Learning Progression

Appendix A: Grade-Level Domain Expectations for Analyzing Literary Text ..................................................... 21

Appendix B: Organization of Skill Areas within the Five Domains ..................................................................... 23

Appendix C: Progression of Skills for Identifying Author’s Purpose ................................................................... 25

Appendix D: Example of how skills serve as prerequisites for other skills ........................................................ 26

Appendix E: Common Core State Standard mapped to Core Progress skills ................................................... 27

Core Progress Learning Progression for Reading - Built for the Common Core State Standards

Appendix F: Grade-Level Expectations for Informational Text: Craft and Structure .......................................... 28

Appendix G: Organization of Skill Areas within the Four Domains .................................................................... 30

Appendix H: Progression of Skills and Mapping to CCSS for Inference and Evidence .................................... 32

Appendix I: Example of how skills serve as prerequisites for other skills .......................................................... 34 Figures

Figure 1: Core Progress for Reading .................................................................................................................... 3

Figure 2: Progression of grade-level skill statements within a skill area .............................................................. 4

Figure 3: Interrelationships between skills across domains ................................................................................. 5

Figure 4: Correlation of STAR Reading Enterprise to Core Progress ................................................................... 7

Figure 5: Core Progress for Reading with the addition of early literacy skills ...................................................... 9

Figure 6: Correlation of STAR Reading Enterprise to Core Progress Reading built for CCSS ........................... 13

Figure 7: STAR Enterprise provides a student’s entry point into Core Progress ................................................ 16

Figure 8: STAR Early Literacy links with Core Progress for Reading to provide instructional planning resources .............................................................................................................................. 17

Figure 9: STAR Record Book .............................................................................................................................. 18

Figure 10: Kindergarten example of Core Progress tool and instructional resources ....................................... 19

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Tables

Table 1: Examples of how skills serve as a prerequisite for other skills ............................................................... 5

Table 2: Common Core State Standard maps to Core Progress skills ............................................................... 11

Table 3: Headings within the Domains of Core Progress Learning Progression for Reading - Built for the Common Core State Standards ........................................................................................ 12

Table 4: STAR Reading Enterprise item mapped to a third-grade-level skill statement ..................................... 14

Table 5: STAR Early Literacy Enterprise item mapped to a Kindergarten-level skill statement ......................... 15

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Executive Summary Learning Progressions are descriptions of how students typically advance their learning in a subject area.Several views of how learning progressions can be developed have been set forth (for example, Alonzo and Steedle, 2008; Anderson, 2008a; Corcoran, Mosher, and Rogat, 2009; Confrey and Maloney, 2010; Pellegrino, 2011; Smith et al., 2006). Common to these perspectives is the idea that the development of learning progressions is an iterative process. It begins with a hypothesis, informed by what we know about student learning, which undergoes empirical testing and subsequent refinement based on the data. Core Progress for Reading was developed according to this iterative model.

Renaissance Learning first developed the Core Progress Reading learning progression taking into account the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), as well as other standards and research. In July, 2013, a second learning progression built explicitly for the CCSS was released. The skills and understandings in the new Core Progress Learning Progression for Reading - Built for the Common Core State Standards provide the intermediate steps necessary to reach the levels of expertise identified through the standards. It progresses to the level of reading competence required to be college and career ready.

To reflect the organization of the standards, Core Progress Reading built for CCSS has four domains, including 1) foundational skills, 2) language, 3) literature, and 4) informational text.

This paper describes the Core Progress learning progressions developed by Renaissance Learning. It begins with the explanation of what learning progressions are, and then describes a new empirically validated approach used to develop the original Core Progress learning progression for reading. Next, it demonstrates how learning progressions support the intent of the Common Core State Standards with its new Core Progress Reading built for CCSS. Finally, it explains how learning progressions support instruction and assessment.

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IntroductionOver the last decade, much of the focus of educational reform in the United States has been on the creation and improvement of standards of learning. In 2010, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for learning in math and English language arts were released. As the CCSS mission statement explains, “The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.”

At the same time, within the field of education, the idea of learning progressions has received increasing attention (for example, Alonzo and Gearhart, 2006; Corcoran, Mosher, and Rogat 2009, 2011; Heritage, 2008, 2009; Leahy and Wiliam, 2011). One of the reasons for this interest is the desire to provide precise descriptions of the incremental steps of learning than can be represented in any standards statements and that can be effectively used in guiding the design of instruction and assessment.

While the Common Core State Standards represent a clear step toward providing a more coherent pathway to meeting educational goals than many prior standards, by their nature, the CCSS do not describe a fully formed pathway along which students are expected to progress. The next step, clarified and largely made possible by the Common Core State Standards, is the development of fully formed learning progressions.

The next step, clarified and largely made possible by the Common Core State Standards, is the development of fully formed learning progressions.

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What are learning progressions?Pellegrino (2011, 9) defines learning progressions as “descriptions of successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about key disciplinary concepts and practices across multiple grades” which outline “the intermediate steps toward expertise.” Leahy and Wiliam (2011, 1) view learning progressions as descriptions of “what it is that gets better when someone gets better at something” (2011, 1). They “reflect what is known from research and experience to tell a reasonable and comprehensive story of how students move from naïve understanding to mastery in a domain” (Anderson 2008b as cited in Heritage 2011).

Masters and Forster (1997, 1) describe progressions as “a picture of what it means to ‘improve’ in an area of learning.” Confrey and colleagues suggest that learning progressions assume a progression of cognitive states that move from simple to complex and, while not necessarily linear, the progression is not random, but rather is sequenced and ordered as “expected tendencies” or “likely probabilities” of how learning develops (Confrey and Maloney, 2010).

Finally, Heritage (2011, 3) suggests that learning progressions provide descriptions of “how students’ learning of important concepts and skills in a domain develops from its most rudimentary state through increasingly sophisticated states over a period of schooling.”

Inherent in these views of progressions is the idea of a coherent and continuous pathway along which students move incrementally through states of increasing competence in a domain. Every incremental state builds on and integrates the previous one as students accrue new levels of expertise with each successive step in the progression. It is important to note, however, that while progressions may provide clear descriptions of how learning develops in a domain, they are not developmentally inevitable. Rather, they are dependent on good curriculum and instruction (National Research Council, 2007; Pellegrino, 2011).

As Herman (2006, 122) observes, “whether and how children are able to engage in particular learning performances and the sequence in which they are able to do so are very much dependent on previous opportunities to learn.” The benefit of progressions is that they lay out a continuum to guide teaching and learning over time so that student competence in the domain can be advanced coherently and continuously.

The benefit of progressions is that they lay out a continuum to guide teaching and learning over time so that student competence in the domain can be advanced coherently and continuously.

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2Analyzing Literary Text

The learning progression for reading is a research-based continuum to guide teaching and learning over time so that student competence in reading can be advanced coherently and continuously.

Comprehension Strategiesand Constructing Meaning

Analyzing Argument and Evaluating TextUnderstanding Author’s Craft

Word Knowledge and Skills

Stage One: The development of Core Progress™ for Reading

Phase one: Qualitative analysis to determine structure, content, and instructional orderDuring the first phase, the content analysis drew on reading theory, knowledge derived from previous product development, and review of national documents such as the National Assessment of Education Progress Reading (NAEP) framework, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, state standards, and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Through this analysis, the organizational structure for the reading learning progression that emerged was domains (5), skill areas (36), and grade-level skill statements (more than 650).

The learning progression is comprised of five (sub) domains: 1) word knowledge and skills; 2) comprehension strategies and constructing meaning; 3) analyzing literary text; 4) understanding author’s craft; and 5) analyzing argument and evaluating text.1 The five domains are each represented by a different color in Figure 1. For each grade pre-K through 12, grade-level domain expectations were identified to describe the desired level of student understanding by the end of the year. These expectations form the foundation of the learning progression. The learning progression then goes a step further to identify the intermediate skills and concepts necessary for students to move toward those expectations. See Appendix A for a list of the grade-level domain expectation statements for Analyzing Literary Text.

Figure 1: Core Progress for Reading

Core Progress for Reading is an empirically validated continuum to guide teaching, learning, and assessment over time so that student competence in reading can be advanced coherently and continuously.

1 Note that the five domains are all technically subdomains of the overall domains of reading.

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The skill areas represent the various skills and understandings that students gain as they progress in their reading development. After the first stage of development, Core Progress included 36 skill areas. A complete list, including the original 36 skill areas, can be found in Appendix B.

The grade-level skill statements identify the incremental steps students take as they progress in acquiring specific skills and understandings. These statements begin in the early grades and run through twelfth grade. In phase 1, there were more than 650 grade-level skill statements identified.

The grade-level skill statements provide specific examples of relevant words and texts, but do not specify reading content or identify the activities students should be able to perform to reflect attainment of a skill. They are intended as statements of the skill itself, which serves to advance reading competence. The skill statements reflect levels of relative difficulty of skills and understandings identified in the progression from their most basic, foundational states through increasingly sophisticated states of competency.

Figure 2 illustrates that in the domain of Comprehension Strategies and Constructing Meaning, the skill area identifying author’s purpose begins with grade 2 students developing an understanding “that authors write texts for different purposes.” Having established this understanding, students move incrementally through successive steps of increasing competence so that by the middle grades they are able to “evaluate the appropriateness of the form chosen by the author in light of the author’s purpose,” and in the upper grades they “analyze and critique how the author’s use of language, organizational structures, techniques and rhetorical devices further or detract from the author’s purpose.”

Each step of the progression subsumes and builds on the previous one, describing a pathway of increasing expertise within the skill area. (For the full progression of this skill, see Appendix C.)

Figure 2: Progression of grade-level skill statements within a skill area

In addition to identifying the progression of skills within a domain and skill area, content-area experts identified a sub-set of skills, across domains, which are the key skills to students’ development at each grade level. These are referred to as focus skills.

Analyze and critique how the author’s use of language, organizational structures, techniques and rhetorical devices further or detract from the author’s purpose

Evaluate the appropriateness of the form chosen by the author in light of the author’s purpose

Understand that authors write texts for different purposes

Identifying Author’s Purpose

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The focus skills and prerequisites act as building blocks, each representing a specific level of competency of a skill or understanding that rests on prior development and that also provides a foundation for the next level of learning. Moving toward increased understanding over time requires continually building up and building on a solid foundation of knowledge, concepts, and skills. For each focus skill, the associated prerequisites necessary to understand that skill were identified across grades, skill areas, and domains. To illustrate the interrelated nature of the skills and how they serve as prerequisites to each other, see Table 1. In this example, the 10th Grade focus skill, Analyze the cumulative impact of figurative language on wider themes and meanings of the text, from the domain Understanding Author’s Craft, has five prerequisite skills that span two grades and three domains. For an additional example, see Appendix D.

Table 1: Example of how skills serve as a prerequisite for other skills

To further illustrate how grade-level skill statements weave across the domains, see the example in Figure 3. Student ability to “recognize themes in a story that are stated directly or indirectly,” in fifth grade builds on earlier learnings about theme within the same domain of Analyzing Literary Text. Recognizing themes also builds on earlier acquired skills within the domain of Comprehension Strategies and Constructing Meaning, including “identify main ideas and implied messages” (main ideas, Grade 4) and “use prior knowledge and textual details to draw conclusions about information or events in texts” (draw conclusions, Grade 3).

As the progression of skills and understandings within each domain was written, multiple drafts and revisions went through expert review. The emphasis of the review process was to ensure adequate and realistic advancement of skill statements within and across domains.

Grade Grade Level Skill Statement Domain

Grade 10 Elaborate on ideas in text in order to clarify them and understand their impact

Comprehension Strategies and Constructing Meaning

Grade 9 Analyze how subtle themes are revealed (e.g., how characters affect its development) Analyzing Literary Text

Grade 9 Analyze the cumulative impact of figurative language on the text as a whole Understanding Author’s Craft

Grade 9Analyze how the author's choice of words and use of language appeal to the senses and impact mood, tone, theme, and aesthetic quality

Understanding Author’s Craft

Grade 9 Recognize the meaning of patterns of imagery and symbolism in literary text Understanding Author’s Craft

Prerequisites across domains and grades for the skill: Analyze the cumulative impact of figurative language on wider themes and meanings of the text (Domain: Understanding Author’s Craft)

Use prior knowledge and textual details to draw conclusions

Recognize themes in a story that are stated directly or indirectly

Identify main ideas and implied messages

Figure 3: Interrelationships between skills across domains

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After the qualitative analysis and subsequent creation of the learning progression, Renaissance Learning then conducted a quantitative analysis and “cross check” by calibrating items that assess specific comprehension skills on the STAR Reading Enterprise 1,400-point scale.

Phase two: Quantitative analysis to determine where skills fall on the STAR assessment scaleMethodIn the second phase, the order of skills in the learning progression was re-examined quantitatively through a calibration process used to analyze assessment items. This analysis compared the empirically observed order of skills (i.e., where skill difficulty falls on a measurement scale) to the pedagogically determined order of skills (i.e., the most productive order of skills for learning a particular skill).

Between February 2010 and July 2011 over 3,400 items were field tested, calibrated, and analyzed using a process called dynamic calibration. In this process, a small number of experimental items (one to three) were added onto each student’s STAR Reading Enterprise assessment nationwide. Response data from thousands of students were collected for each of these experimental items, and the items were then calibrated by fitting a logistic regression model (the Rasch model) to the relationship between scores on each item and a student’s Rasch ability scores on STAR Reading. The result was to calibrate the difficulty of each new item on the same Rasch scale that is used for adaptive item selection in STAR Reading.

Following the calibration process, the average of the calibrated Rasch response functions for each of the items assessing a skill was determined; the average is a “skill characteristic curve.” For each skill, a skill difficulty parameter was then calculated: the point on the Rasch scale at which a student of the same Rasch ability would have an expected percent correct of 70 if tested on all of the items that measure the skill. This parameter is designated SD70, or Scaled Difficulty 70. Finally, the relationship between the empirically calibrated SD70 skill difficulties and the sequential order of STAR Reading skills in the learning progression was evaluated, as a means of validating the Core Progress for Reading learning progression. ResultsFigure 4 on page 7 is a scatter plot of the scaled difficulty parameters (SD70) of a sampling of the 716 skills against the school grade and month that characterize its instructional order in the learning progression. Best-fitting linear functions relating SD70 to instructional order have been calculated for each of the five domains of STAR Reading. These are plotted as color-coded straight lines superimposed on the scatter plot. For each domain, the parameters of the linear function are displayed, along with the squared correlation between the skill difficulty parameters and instructional order. These squared correlations range from 0.81 (for analyzing argument and evaluating text) to 0.95 (for word knowledge and skills). The square roots of those values—0.90 and 0.97—are the low and high ends of the range of correlation coefficients between skill difficulty and instructional order. These may be thought of as measures of the validity of the Core Progress learning progressions for describing the developmental sequence of the hundreds of skills that make up the STAR Reading domains.

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Figure 4: Correlation of STAR Reading Enterprise to Core Progress

Because of the correlation between STAR items and Core Progress, a student’s scaled score (representing his or her location on the STAR scale) can be mapped to the learning progression, enabling research-based inferences about which skills that student has likely already developed, which skills are ready to be developed, and which skills will likely develop soon. Core Progress learning progression for reading was initially released as an integral part of STAR Reading Enterprise, in June 2011.

After the initial release, development of the learning progression continued. The next stage incorporated the early literacy skills measured by the STAR Early Literacy assessment into the same Core Progress learning progression.

The high correlation between the scaled difficulty of STAR Reading Enterprise skills and their instructional order in Core Progress provides empirical evidence of the direct link between the assessment scores generated by STAR and the instructional direction then provided by the Sample Items and other educator helps within the software.

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Stage Two: Early literacy skills added into Core Progress™ for ReadingDuring the second stage of development, early literacy skills were added to the Core Progress learning progression for reading. The same mixed-method approach was used in stage two. Content-area experts determined the organization, content, and instructional order of the early literacy skills using qualitative methods, including a literature review and analysis of standards. Then a quantitative analysis using calibration data from STAR Early Literacy Enterprise items was conducted in order to determine the empirical order of the early literacy skills on the STAR scale.

Phase One: Qualitative analysisIn 2007, Renaissance Learning began an extensive literature review that spanned the next four years. The purpose was to distill the research base for early literacy development to identify a realistic, sustainable learning map for K – 3. Key research reports and resources from the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP), National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), Mid-Content Research for Education and Learning (McREL), SEDL and others were used to help identify skills that are important and most predictive of later success in reading. The skills list was then compared to McREL’s Content Knowledge Compendiums, McREL’s Early Literacy Standards and Benchmarks, multiple state standards, and most recently the Common Core State Standards. After this qualitative analysis, a preliminary order of early literacy skills was formed.

Phase Two: Quantitative analysisAs in the initial stage of development, the next step was to reexamine the order quantitatively using calibration data from STAR Early Literacy assessment items. Through dynamic calibration, researchers and developers add one to three experimental items into students’ STAR Early Literacy assessments nationwide. Response data from a minimum of 300 students are collected on each item. Over 3,500 items were field tested, calibrated and analyzed. Examination of the item calibration results confirmed and informed the rank order of the early literacy skills added to the learning progression. The final result was a list of early literacy skills that were used to expand the Core Progress learning progression for reading.

The early literacy skills fell neatly into two of the five established domains, word knowledge and skills, and comprehension strategies and constructing meaning, and followed the same organization structure of domains, skill areas, and grade-level skill statements. An additional 27 skill areas were added within the word knowledge and skills domain. A complete list of the skill areas by domain is available in Appendix B. At the most specific level, 67 grade-level skill statements were added to new and existing skill areas within these two domains and six existing skills were deemed to also be early literacy skills, making 73 early literacy skills in total. The early literacy skills span grade levels Pre-Kindergarten through 2nd grade.

Content-area experts determined an instructional order of the early literacy skills using qualitative methods, including a literature review and analysis of standards.

The early literacy skills fell neatly into two of the five established domains, word knowledge and skills, and comprehension strategies and constructing meaning.

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Core Progress for Reading includes five domains, 63 skill areas, and 716 grade-level skill statements that range from Pre-Kindergarten through 12th Grade. Each domain is represented in Figure 5 by a different color. The boxes represent groups of skills within the domain at each grade-level and shows how the skills are generally connected within the domains and often across domains. The highlighted area shows where the learning progression was enhanced with early literacy skills.

Figure 5: Core Progress for Reading with the addition of early literacy skills

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Analyzing Literary Text

The learning progression for reading is a research-based continuum to guide teaching and learning over time so that student competence in reading can be advanced coherently and continuously.

Comprehension Strategiesand Constructing Meaning

Analyzing Argument and Evaluating TextUnderstanding Author’s Craft


The early literacy skills span grade levels Pre-Kindergarten through 2nd grade within the Comprehension Strategies and Constructing Meaning and Word Knowledge and Skills domains.

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Mapping Core Progress™ for Reading to the Common Core State StandardsThe Common Core State Standards represent a clear step toward providing a more coherent pathway to meeting educational goals than many prior standards. At the same time, standards do not describe a fully formed pathway along which students are expected to progress. The next step, clarified and largely made possible by the CCSS, is the development of fully formed learning progressions.

Core Progress for Reading was designed to take the foundation laid by Common Core State Standards and apply the intermediate steps and prerequisite skills necessary to reach the levels of expertise identified through the standards. They begin with emergent reading and progress to the level of reading competence required to be college and career ready.

The process of analyzing and mapping the Common Core State Standards began before the final draft of the standards was even released. As the movement to create the Common Core State Standards was getting underway, Renaissance Learning was already reviewing and learning from the work of independent educational organizations such as Achieve. Then, as the Common Core State Standards entered into various stages of completion, Renaissance Learning carefully monitored them in draft form and provided public commentary. Core Progress was developed with a deep understanding of the CCSS.

Renaissance Learning has long been recognized for excellence in standards analysis and alignment. For over ten years, the company has maintained a dedicated team of standards experts. This committed team often consults with content-area experts and regional educational laboratories such as the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) and Education Northwest. To illustrate the mapping of a Common Core standard, consider the following performance statement from the Common Core in Table 2: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Through a rigorous analysis process, this statement was mapped to the Comprehension Strategies and Constructing Meaning domain in the learning progression. Within that domain, it was further analyzed to reveal two main reading skills: identifying details and drawing conclusions. These skills were then mapped to the grade-level skill statements for first through fourth grade. For an example of how Core Progress is mapped to the CCSS foundational skill, Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words, see Appendix E.

The Common Core State Standards do not propose the foundational understanding and skills related to making inferences and drawing conclu-sions below fourth grade (focusing solely on identifying and understanding details in the early grades). The contribution of Core Progress for Reading is identification of the embedded antecedent foundational steps within Common Core performance statements.

Core Progress for Reading was designed to take the Common Core State Standards to the next level by mapping the intermediate steps and prerequisite skills necessary to reach the levels of expertise identified through the standards.

The contribution of Core Progress for Reading is identification of the embedded antecedent foundational steps within Common Core performance statements.

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CCSS College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard “Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text” maps to the following Core Progress skills for identifying details and drawing conclusions for Grades K-4.

Domain Skill Area Grade Skill


Identify Details KAsk and answer questions about a text’s details (e.g., What is the cow doing in Good Night Moon?)


Draw Conclusions 1Answer leading questions to draw conclusions about text (e.g., Why do you think Max was sent to his room in Where the Wild Things Are?)


Identify Details 1Answer who, what, where, when, why, and how questions


Identify Details 1Understand that details support the main idea in an informational passage


Draw Conclusions 2Draw simple conclusions about a text using evidence and details from text and illustrations


Identify Details 2 Identify supporting details in informational text


Identify Details 2Locate details in text and determine what they describe or explain


Draw Conclusions 3Use prior knowledge and textual details to draw conclusions about information or events in text


Identify Details 3 Explain how details support the main idea


Draw Conclusions 4Draw multiple conclusions about information, events, or characters in text, and cite textual details that support the conclusions


Identify Details 4Use main and supporting ideas and details to understand text

Table 2: Common Core State Standard maps to Core Progress skills

Common Core Standards are end-of-grade expectations. The Core Progress learning progression provides the prerequisite and intermediary steps for reaching the standards.

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Stage Three: Building a new learning progression specifically for the Common Core State StandardsAs more states implemented the Common Core, the need for a learning progression built specifically for the new standards was recognized. In July 2013, the Core Progress Learning Progression for Reading – Built for the Common Core State Standards was released. This progression includes incremental steps of learning that fulfill the intent and specifics of the standards, culminating in college and career readiness.

To create a learning progression built on the CCSS, the content team at Renaissance Learning started with a close analysis of each standard. They identified the skills inherent in the standard and its intent, as well as key terminology used to describe the standard. Developers also immersed themselves in the literature and resources available regarding the Common Core to determine how the standards were being interpreted and implemented by states and relevant consortia.

From the deep study of the standards, the order of the new learning progression emerged. To reflect the organization of the standards, Core Progress Reading built for CCSS learning progression has four domains, including 1) foundational skills, 2) language, 3) literature, and 4) informational text.2 (This is a significant change from Core Progress for Reading, which has five domains.) The Informational Text domain emphasizes the importance the CCSS place on nonfiction text. Within each domain, the headings match those in CCSS and are shown in Table 3. Grade-level domain expectations were identified for each heading. See Appendix F for a list of the grade-level expectation statements for Informational Text: Craft and Structure.

Using the framework of the four domains, the content team began the process of identifying skill areas and skill statements for each standard—within each grade and from grade to grade for Kindergarten through grade 12. To track the skill statements, the team used spreadsheets, to provide a visual representation of how skills support the standards, progress from Kindergarten through grade 12, and how they collectively described standard skill sets at each individual grade. As they identified skill statements that fulfilled the intent of each standard, the team could look vertically at the document to see how skills fit within a given grade. Looking horizontally, it was easy to see how skill areas developed in sophistication from grade to grade—while ensuring there were not gaps in skills. A complete list of domains, headings, and skill areas can be found in Appendix G.

Many of the skill statements from the original Core Progress for Reading learning progression were perfect matches to the standards in the Common Core. These skill statements had been quantitatively analyzed in the calibration process (see Phase Two—Quantitative analysis to determine where skills fall on the STAR assessment scale earlier in this white paper) so they were known to be accurate grade-level descriptions of learning. Figure 6 (next page) shows a sampling of the skills plotted by their difficulty level on the STAR Reading Enterprise assessment scale and their instructional order according to Core Progress Reading built for CCSS. This chart is organized by CCSS domain headings.

2 Note that the domains in the learning progressions are all technically subdomains of the overall domain of reading.

Table 3: Headings within the Domains of Core Progress Learning Progression for Reading - Built for the Common Core State Standards

Domain Heading

Foundational Skills

- Print Concepts- Phonological Awareness- Phonics and Word

Recognition- Fluency

LanguageVocabulary Acquisition and Use

Literature

- Key Ideas and Details- Craft and Structure- Integration of Knowledge

and Ideas- Range of Reading and

Level of Text Complexity

Informational Text

- Key Ideas and Details- Craft and Structure- Integration of Knowledge

and Ideas- Range of Reading and

Level of Text Complexity

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Figure 6: Correlation of STAR Reading Enterprise to Core Progress Reading built for CCSS

While adding skill statements into the learning progression, the team also identified “bridges” and “gaps.” Bridges are skills that may not be explicitly stated in the CCSS but are nonetheless necessary to acquire the skills represented in the standards. Gaps describe skills that are not emphasized in a particular grade-level standard but are given importance in the grades before or after. In many instances, these bridges and gaps were filled with existing skill statements from the original Core Progress for Reading learning progression. In other cases, the content team drafted entirely new skill statements, drawing on their knowledge of the standards while analyzing information from multiple states. Whether using existing skill statements or creating new ones, each skill statement was reviewed from the perspective and stated philosophy of the Common Core. See Appendix H to view a progression of skills for Inference and Evidence.

After the content of the Core Progress Reading built for CCSS learning progression was completed, focus skills were identified—skills that underpin the ability to grasp and demonstrate other skills at the current or future grades and/or are especially central to the intent of a given standard. Focus skills address the “shifts” in focus and priority at each grade as defined by CCSS and addressed in the Publishers’ Criteria for Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Literacy, Grades 3-12. When using the Core Progress Reading built for CCSS learning progression, educators will be able to easily identify focus skills and then access additional information pertinent to the teaching and learning of the skill, such as content-area vocabulary, conceptual knowledge, linguistic competencies, and ELL support. See Appendix I for an example of how skills serve as prerequisites for other skills.

As with the earlier Core Progress for Reading learning progression, Renaissance Learning consulted with Dr. Margaret Heritage, an academic expert on learning progressions. Dr. Heritage reviewed each section of the Core Progress Reading built for CCSS learning progression and provided suggestions and guidance. Dr. Heritage considered the adequacy of each skill in addressing the standards, the progression of skills from grade to grade, and the language used to describe skills.

With the Core Progress Reading built for the CCSS learning progression, educators can feel confident they are accessing a continuum of interrelated development of strategies, skills, and behaviors. The progression incorporates the core ideas of each domain from their least to most sophisticated manifestation. It includes skills that may not be explicitly stated in the CCSS standards but are nonetheless necessary to address the skills represented in the standards. In learning the skills in the Core Progress Reading built for CCSS learning progression, students will be on the path to achieving the common goal of attaining college and career readiness.

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Core Progress Reading built for CCSS: Skill Difficulty (June'13)

Key Ideas and Details

Craft and Structure

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

Range of Reading/Text Complexity

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

y = 87.805x + 34.663 R² = 0.867

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Grade Equivalent Order

Core Progress Reading built for CCSS: Skill Difficulty (June'13)

Key Ideas and Details

Craft and Structure

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

Range of Reading/Text Complexity

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

The correlation between STAR Reading Enterprise and Core Progress Reading built for CCSS provides empirical evidence of the bridge between assessment and instruction.

14

Core Progress™: An integral component of STAR Reading Enterprise™ and STAR Early Literacy Enterprise™ In their landmark report Knowing What Students Know, the authors clearly establish learning progressions as the foundation for assessment. As they state, “Models of student progression in learning should underlie the assessment system, and tests should be designed to provide information that maps back to the progression” (National Research Council, 2001, 256).

More recently, James Pellegrino, one of the authors of Knowing What Students Know, has suggested that learning progressions can guide the specification of learning performances, which in turn can guide the development of tasks that enable educators to infer students’ level of competence for the major constructs that are the target of instruction and assessment (Pellegrino 2011). If assessments are developed from a progression, they can provide a continuous source of evidence about students’ learning status as their learning evolves toward increasingly sophisticated levels of understanding and skills. Core Progress learning progressions are an integral part of STAR Reading Enterprise and STAR Early Literacy Enterprise assessments. The test items from both assessments are based on the learning progression and the assessments dynamically adjust for difficulty according to the student’s successive responses. After a student completes the test, teachers view the placement of the student on the learning progression, including specific skills and understandings students are prepared to acquire next.

Through the learning progression, STAR Enterprise items enable teachers to monitor student progress within specific reading domains. To see this in action, see Table 4, which illustrates how a STAR item is mapped to a domain, skill area, and grade-level skill statement (third grade).

Table 4: STAR Reading Enterprise item mapped to a third-grade-level skill statement

Domain: Analyzing literary text

Skill Area: Identify characters and understand characterization

Grade-level skill statements:

2nd Grade

Identify and describe major and minor characters and their traits

3rd Grade

Identify and describe main characters’ traits, motives, and feelings, and recognize how characters change.

3rd Grade STAR Reading Enterprise Item

4th Grade

Understand the relationship between a character’s actions, traits, and motives

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Domain: Word Knowledge and Skills

Skill Area: Blending word parts

Grade-level skill statements:

Kindergarten

Understand that blending phonemes produces words (e.g., blend the sounds sh- and -ip and choose the word’s picture from a ship, a shower, and a lip) and that the sounds in words can be segmented

Kindergarten STAR Early Literacy Enterprise Item

KindergartenIdentify 2- and 3-syllable patterns in spoken words by blending, counting, and segmenting syllables (e.g., tar-get makes the word target)

The item in Table 4 (previous page) is designed to assess a student’s ability to understand characterization in literary texts at a specific place within the learning progression. It reflects a level of skill and understanding beyond the ability to “identify and describe major and minor characters and their traits” (Grade 2), but not yet at the level of sophistication needed to “understand the relationship between a character’s actions, traits, and motives” (Grade 4).

While the item is designed to offer feedback specifically on a student’s understanding of characterization, it also necessarily requires the student to draw a conclusion from the narrative—a reading skill that is tracked in another skill set within the progression.

In the example illustrated in Table 4, the level of sophistication of the conclusion being drawn in a third-grade skill-level “identify characters and understand characterization” item falls within the range of the second-grade skill-level of the “drawing conclusions” progression. A student’s performance on the question is thus more likely to be a reflection of his understanding of characterization than of his ability to draw conclusions at grade level. At the same time, the item demonstrates the web of interrelation that informs the development and progression of individual reading skills.

In the same manner that STAR Reading Enterprise items align to the skills within Core Progress, STAR Early Literacy Enterprise items also align. See Table 5 for an example.

Table 5: STAR Early Literacy Enterprise item mapped to a Kindergarten-level skill statement

Listen carefully to what I say. H-ook. Pick the picture whose name I say. H-ook... H-ook.

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Bridging Assessment and Instruction with STAR EnterpriseCore Progress learning progressions inform instruction within STAR Reading Enterprise and STAR Early Literacy Enterprise. The STAR Record Book bridges assessment and instruction by using a STAR scaled score to suggest skills to focus on in order to advance group or individual students from one level of understanding to the next. These suggested skills can also be viewed using the Instructional Planning reports.

To further expand understanding of skills and support instruction, educators find sample items and teacher activities associated with each skill in the Record Book. Each tool also highlights prerequisite mapping and provides a skill elements table for each focus skill that identifies vocabulary, conceptual knowledge, and linguistic competencies needed to understand the skill, along with suggestions for supporting English language learners.

Instructional Planning using Record BookA student’s STAR Enterprise score is the entry point into the learning progression. Both STAR Reading Enterprise and STAR Early Literacy Enterprise map to the same continuous learning progression. Using the Record Book or Instructional Planning Reports, educators can find a student’s location on the learning progression and identify skills they have partially mastered and are ready to learn next. (See Figure 7)

Figure 7: STAR Enterprise provides a student’s entry point into Core Progress

Based on item response theory, the STAR Enterprise assessments have a robust, vertical scale that together span grades Pre K–12. Because of the vertical nature of the scales, student scores are related to previous scores—both during one school year and longitudinally. In addition, because the STAR scales are linked to the learning progressions, there is continuity of skill-based recommendations for instruction. All skills and items sit on one robust, vertical scale.

College &Career Ready

Early Literacy

1400

0900

300

SkillsMastered

SkillsReady to Learn

SkillsRemainingto Learn

680

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The result of this process is that learning is not conceived of as a series of discrete, disparate chunks, but rather as a connected, integrated framework of understanding and skills. Such a framework enables students to apply what they have learned in novel situations, as well as to acquire related new learning more quickly (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000).

Figure 8: STAR Early Literacy links with Core Progress for Reading to provide instructional planning resources

The STAR Record Book provides a streamlined way for educators to plan instruction for individuals or a group of students, by providing details on students’ current performance, projected growth and suggested skills that they are ready to focus on. Figure 9 on page 18 shows a class broken out into small instructional groups and then the suggested skills from Core Progress that a teacher can focus on, to advance the first group of students in their understanding of the Literature domain. In Instructional Resources, educators will quickly find the Teacher Activities and Sample Items available for selected skills.

The Suggested Skills Page in the Record Book not only provides a way to view the prerequisite skills, but it also shows the skills that lie ahead in the progression. Educators can reference the grade-level domain expectations to help see how the discrete skills form the foundation to help move students between the different levels of understanding.

College &Career Ready

Early Literacy

475

SkillsMastered

SkillsReady to Learn

SkillsRemainingto Learn

Instructional Planning Report for Lisa Carter Printed Monday, September 12, 2011 11:22:38 AM School: Oakwood Elementary School Teacher: Mrs. C. Rowley

Class: Mrs. Rowley’s Class

Grade:1

˜ Designates a focus skill. Focus skills identify the most critical skills to learn at each grade level.

STAR Early Literacy Test ResultsCurrent SS (Scaled Score): 475 Test Date: 09/08/2011Literacy Classification: Early Emergent Reader Est. ORF: 0

Projected SS for 06/10/12: 695 Based on research, 50% of students at this student's level will achieve this much growth. Lisa’s Current Performance School Benchmark

Current

Projected

Scaled Score 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 Urgent Intervention Intervention On Watch At/Above Benchmark Skills to Learn Skills listed below are suggested skills Lisa should work on based on her last STAR Early Literacy test. These skills should

be challenging, but not too difficult for Lisa. Combine this information with your own knowledge of the student and use your

professional judgment when designing an instructional program. Use Core Progress™ learning progression for reading to find additional information for each skill, teacher activities, and sample items.

Word Knowledge and Skills This score suggests Lisa has an understanding that sounds paired with letters represent spoken speech in print. Based on this score, Lisa should practice sounding out simple printed words and blending two-syllable words.

Skills to Learn 1. ˜ Understand that sounds that are paired with letters represent spoken speech in print 2. Understand that words are read from left to right and top to bottom 3. Distinguish between the shapes of different letters (e.g., pick the letter that is different in S, S, C; pick the letter that is

different in E, f, f ) 4. ˜ Understand and identify rhyming sounds (e.g., The sound is /arn/. Look at pictures of a heart, a card, and a barn. Pick the picture that has the /arn/ sound.) 5. Know all the letters of the alphabet and recognize their lower- and uppercase forms (e.g., Pick another way to write the letter G from q, g, j.)

Comprehension Strategies and Constructing Meaning This score suggests Lisa should practice the following emergent reading strategies and skills: identifying directly stated mainideas and supporting details.

Skills to Learn 1. Make predictions based on the cover, title, and illustrations 2.C Identify a book's front and back covers; recognize where to find the names of the author and illustrator 3. Understand vocabulary in context 4.C Identify the topic of a text 5. Ask and answer questions about a text's key details (e.g., what is the cow doing in "Good Night Moon"?)

Current

Projected

1 of 1

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Figure 9: STAR Record Book

Go To

Return to Home

Screening, Progress Monitoring & Intervention

Reports

Group 3 - Median Scaled Score: 442

Rivas, José

Locke, Kimberly

StudentInstructional

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Daniels, Noah

Okada, Casey

View Suggested Skills



Record Book

Rice, Heather

Curtis, Jason

Hunger, Stephanie

Clark, Darius

Johnson, Tim

Reyes, Christina

Mackowski, Gregory

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Dubaz, Taylor

Atkinson, Rebecca

Major, Jasmine

Farrens, Cathy

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804

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9/13/2012

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Pine Hill Middle SchoolSchool:

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Grade 7, Mrs. Jones class

Instructional Groups

Class or Group:

School Benchmark

Sorting by Instructional Groups shows Enterprise test scores only

Manuals | Help | Log OutHome > Record Book

Karen Jones, Teacher 2012 - 2013STAR Reading

Teacher Activity

© 2011-2012 by Renaissance Learning, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction for educational use by STAR Reading Enterprise licensees and their educators, students, and parents allowed.

Connotation and Denotation

Sample Item

Create Instructional Groups

ViewSuggestedSkills

Find Instructional Resources

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Instructional ResourcesInstructional resources, teacher activities, and sample items are continually being developed and added to Core Progress for Reading. Many of the initial teacher activities, available after the first stage of development, use a standard lesson plan format, and include the objective, materials, and overview of the lesson (see Figure 9 for an example). These instructional resources can be either printed or used with an interactive white board.

The most recent teacher activities created for early literacy skills consist of three stand-alone components, each centered on the same skill. Each component is designed for small group instruction and may serve the differentiated needs of students at a range of ability levels:

1. Core Activity: (Includes a Questions for Reading feature): This component is designed for students who need specific instruction and practice in a given skill. The core activity is intended to be facilitated by the classroom teacher, rather than an aide or adult volunteer.

2. Writing or Fluency Activity: This component is for students who have some proficiency in the skill and can benefit from additional focused practice. The activity is designed such that a classroom aide or adult volunteer may facilitate the instruction.

3. Practice and Extension Activities3: This optional component is designed for students who have mastery of the skill and require practice activities that offer a different way to explore the skill. These activities may incorporate art, movement, games, and other means of exploring a given concept or skill.

The format of the teacher activities for the early literacy skills was designed after consultation with experts who are active in the classroom. In addition to the new format, the early literacy teacher activities now include references to the Common Core State Standards that the lesson and skill address. (See Figure 10.)

Figure 10: Kindergarten example of Core Progress tool and Instructional resources

Teacher Activity

Sample Item

Common Core State Standards Copyright 2010, produced by NCA and CCSSOCC RP.K.3 - Know and apply grade level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.CC RP.K.3.d - Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ..

3 Practice and Extension Activities are still under development and will be released periodically as they are completed.

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ConclusionRenaissance Learning has developed two learning progressions for reading to fill a need that is only now becoming fully realized in education. Developed by experts in reading content and learning progressions, and supported by a framework of assessments and instructional tools, each has been designed to help educators connect data to instruction. The goal of the Common Core State Standards is to ensure that all students in all schools be fully prepared for college or career by the time they graduate from high school. The benefit of progressions is that they lay out a continuum to guide teaching and learning over time so that student competence in the domain can be advanced coherently and continuously.

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Appendix A: Grade-Level Domain Expectations for Analyzing Literary Text

Grade Level

Domain Expectation

K Students ask and answer questions about major events in stories. They identify a story’s beginning, middle, and end. They identify a story’s characters and setting.

1 Students distinguish between reality and fantasy. They ask and answer questions about plot, setting, and characters. They recognize general differences among basic genres of print material.

2

Students understand the difference between fiction and nonfiction. They identify and describe a story’s plot, setting, and characters, and they recognize that a story has a narrator. They identify and understand a moral stated in a story. They distinguish the differences in literary genres such as poetry, drama, and fiction.

3

Students recognize basic structural characteristics of different genres. They describe characters’ traits and motivations, and how characters change. They describe how problems in the plot are resolved and how setting contributes to the story. They recognize first-person point of view and can identify a story’s narrator.

4Students gain knowledge of traditional literature and mythology and recognize distinctive elements of the basic genres of drama, poetry, and prose literature. They analyze plot, setting, characterization, and theme. They recognize first- and third-person narration.

5

Students increase their knowledge of traditional literature and mythology. They analyze the characteristics of different genres of literature. They analyze plot, setting, characterization, and point of view with increasing precision and appropriate terminology. They infer themes that are not directly stated.

6

Students continue to expand their knowledge of literature and deepen their familiarity with a variety of genres through wide reading including literary nonfiction. They analyze plot, setting, characterization, point of view, and the ways these elements are related with increasing sophistication. They explain how an implied theme is conveyed.

7

Students analyze a variety of forms of literature, drawing on prior literary knowledge and recognition of structural elements and genre characteristics. They analyze the interrelation of narrative elements such as plot, setting, characterization, and point of view with increasing sophistication. They recognize recurring and universal themes and support their interpretations of themes with details from text.

8

Students analyze the characteristics of a variety of genres and understand the relationship between genre characteristics and purpose. They analyze narrative elements and their functions with increasing sophistication, drawing on recognition of common plot devices, conflicts, and character types. They analyze how themes develop and support their interpretations with details.

9

Students expand their analyses of literary forms to include literary nonfiction, classical drama, and poetic forms such as ballads and sonnets. Their analysis of narrative function and elements includes that of nonlinear plots and consideration of historical/cultural context and the influence of other literary works. They recognize themes drawn from classical and traditional sources.

10

Students analyze an array of literary forms of drama, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. They analyze narrative function and elements with increasing sophistication, evaluating the contribution of parts to the whole, assessing the historical/cultural setting and context of the text, and identifying archetypal characters. They evaluate the effects of narration and point of view on a text's meaning. They infer the theme of increasingly complex literary works.

CORE PROGRESS FOR READING LEARNING PROGRESSION

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11

Students analyze more sophisticated works of literature from a wide array of genres of drama, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. They recognize and use literary terms and conventions and use them as an aid to gaining greater insight into literature. They consider multiple interpretations and critical perspectives and assess a text’s cultural and intellectual contribution. They analyze narrative elements and theme through close readings of details that connect back to a text’s greater meaning.

12

Students critically evaluate literature. They situate texts within literary traditions and forms. They consider multiple interpretations and critical perspectives and evaluate the cultural and intellectual influences on and contributions of a text. They analyze and evaluate narrative function, elements, and themes through close readings of details that connect back to a text’s greater meaning.

Grade Level

Domain Expectation


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Appendix B: Organization of Skill Areas within the Five Domains

Domain Skill Area


• Alphabetic knowledge*• Alphabetic sequence*• Letter sounds*• Print concepts*• Visual discrimination of letters and words*• Rhyming and word families*• Blending word parts*• Blending phonemes*• Initial and final phonemes*• Consonant blends (PA)*• Medial phoneme discrimination*• Phoneme segmentation*• Phoneme isolation/manipulation*• Short vowel sounds*• Initial consonant sounds*• Final consonant sounds*• Long vowel sounds*• Variant vowel sounds*• Consonant blends (PH)• Consonant digraphs*• Other vowel sounds*• Sound-symbol correspondence: consonants*• Word building*• Sound-symbol correspondence: vowels*• Word Families/Rhyming*• Use context clues• Use structural analysis• Word facility*• Recognize and understand synonyms• Antonyms*• Recognize and understand homonyms and multi-meaning words• Recognize connotation and denotation• Understand idioms• Understand analogies


• Make predictions• Identify author’s purpose• Identify and understand text features• Recognize an accurate summary of text• Use repair strategies• Understand vocabulary in context• Draw conclusions• Identify and understand main ideas• Identify details• Extend meaning or form generalizations• Identify and differentiate fact and opinion• Identify organizational structure• Understand cause and effect• Understand comparison and contrast• Identify and understand sequence

* Skill area added during stage two of development


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Domain Skill Area

Analyzing Literary Text

• Identify and understand elements of plot• Identify and understand setting• Identify characters and understand characterization• Identify and understand theme• Identify the narrator and point of view• Identify fiction and nonfiction, reality and fantasy• Identify and understand characteristics of genres

Understanding Author’s Craft• Understand figurative language• Understand literary devices• Identify sensory detail

Analyzing Argument and Evaluating Text

• Identify bias and analyze text for logical fallacies• Identify and understand persuasion• Evaluate reasoning and support• Evaluate credibility


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Appendix C: Progression of Skills for Identifying Author’s Purpose

Domain: Comprehension Strategies and Constructing Meaning

Skill: Identifying Author’s Purpose

Grade Skill Statement

K –

1 –

2 Understand that authors write texts for different purposes

3 Identify the author's purpose (e.g., to inform, describe, entertain, explain, share feelings)

4 Identify the author's purpose (e.g., to inform, describe, entertain, explain, share feelings) and explain how the reader can determine the purpose

5

Evaluate the appropriateness of the form chosen by the author in light of the author’s purpose

Identify author’s purpose and adjust reading strategy accordingly (e.g., take notes for informational text; weigh evidence in persuasive text)

Analyze text to identify when an author has more than one purpose

6Identify the author’s purpose and explain how the purpose is conveyed

Compare authors’ purposes in informational text on similar topics

7

Analyze how the author’s purpose or opinion is conveyed

Identity how authors use characteristics of different genres (fiction, poetry, nonfiction, drama) to accomplish different purposes

Determine author’s purpose and how the author fulfills that purpose (e.g., language use, evidence)

8Evaluate how the author’s purpose is conveyed

Explain how word choice, syntax, and organization are used to further the author’s purpose

9 Understand and evaluate how the author’s purpose is reflected in tone and word choice

10 Analyze how an author’s choices (e.g., text organization, style, use of language, literary devices, rhetorical devices) further the purpose

11

Analyze how the author’s style, tone, and diction and rhetorical devices further or detract from the author’s purpose

Evaluate the author’s purpose for consistency and clarity

12 Analyze and critique how the author’s use of language, organizational structures, techniques, and rhetorical devices further or detract from the author’s purpose


26

Prerequisites for the Skill: Understand that a compound word is a word whose parts are also whole (e.g., everyone)

Grade Skill Set Grade-Level Skill Statement

Grade 1 Phonemic AwarenessIdentify single-syllable words by blending and segmenting consonant blends, long vowel digraphs, and other phonemes (e.g., /th/ /r/ /ee/ makes the word three)

Grade 1 PhonicsRead single-syllable words and identify short vowel sounds (e.g., read the words cup, nap, and man; cup has the same middle vowel sound as run)

Grade 1 PhonicsDecode grade-appropriate words (e.g., The word is last. Last means the opposite of first. Pick the word last from last list lost.)

Grade 1 PhonicsRead single-syllable words and distinguish between short vowel sounds (e.g., read the words dip, cat, and nap; dip has a different middle vowel sound than hat)

Grade 1 PhonicsDecode single-syllable words with long vowel sounds (e.g., reading the words heat, let, and end, and recognizing that heat has the long vowel sound)

Grade 1 Phonics

Decode single-syllable words and identify long vowel sounds with common spellings (graphemes) in order to decode single-syllable words (e.g., Read the words feel, let, and end. Feel has the same middle vowel sound as meat.)

Kindergarten Concept of WordKnow that spaces separate words (e.g., recognize the difference between Thecatsleeps. and The cat sleeps.)

Kindergarten Concept of WordDistinguish between words that have different letters (e.g., pick the word that is different from the others in: an, as, an)

Kindergarten Phonemic AwarenessIdentify 2- and 3-syllable patterns in spoken words by blending, counting, and segmenting syllables (e.g., tar-get makes the word target)

Kindergarten Phonics Decode CVC words (e.g., cat, get, mom)

Kindergarten Vocabulary KnowledgeRead grade-appropriate high-frequency (e.g., Dolch, Fry) words by sight

Appendix D: Example of how skills serve as prerequisites for other skills


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Appendix E: Common Core State Standard mapped to Core Progress™ skills

Grade Skill Domain

Kindergarten*Identify short vowel sounds in spoken words (e.g., the middle vowel sound in sit is the same as in did; rat has the same middle vowel sound as cab)


Grade 1

Identify and distinguish medial long vowel phonemes in spoken words (e.g., plane has the same middle vowel sound as make; phone has a different middle vowel sound than seat)


Grade 1

*Distinguish short vowel sounds from long vowel sounds in order to discriminate between those sounds in single syllable words (e.g., reading the words egg, we, and key, egg has the short vowel sound)


* Focus Skill

Common Core Standards are end-of-grade expectations. The Core Progress learning progression provides the prerequisite and intermediary steps for reaching the standards.

CCSS: Reading: Foundational Skill “CCRF.1.2.a Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.” Maps to the following Core Progress skills:


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Appendix F: Grade-Level Expectations for Informational Text: Craft and Structure

Grade Level

Expectation

K

Students develop the understanding that informational texts provide information. They understand the roles of the author and illustrator and identify the basic parts of a book, establishing the basic understanding of text structure. With appropriate scaffolding, they recognize when they are not familiar with a word and use various strategies to determine word meaning.

1

By differentiating between books that tell stories and those that provide information, students learn the different purposes of texts. They continue to ask and answer questions about words and phrases in order to build comprehension as well as their core vocabulary. They begin to navigate books and digital media using text features such as headings, electronic menus, and glossaries, recognizing that authors incorporate these into a text to help the reader find information. They understand that a book provides information though illustrations and other text features as well as through words.

2

Understanding that authors write informational texts for different reasons, students now identify what an author wants to accomplish through the text. They use strategies such as context clues for comprehending unknown words related to topics of study. They become more efficient in their use of text features to locate information, expanding their knowledge to include subheadings, bold print, and indexes. They begin to recognize chronology or sequence in a text, laying the foundation for later analysis of a text’s organizational structure.

3

Students continue to read informational texts to gain background knowledge, using simple strategies to access meaning and build knowledge of specific content-area vocabulary. They start to determine the meaning of nonliteral language as well. Recognizing that an author has a point of view distinct from their own prepares them to analyze the author’s perspective in subsequent grades. They now use advanced text features and search tools to efficiently locate particular information on a topic, understanding that different text features are used for different purposes.

4

Students become more aware of the authors’ point of view and understand that firsthand and secondhand accounts may differ in focus and content by comparing and contrasting multiple texts on the same event. They describe an author’s opinion, and they continue to use various strategies to access the meaning of words in informational texts. Recognizing the common ways of structuring a text, they describe a particular text’s overall structure.

5

Students begin to work with the concept of tone, recognizing that an author’s word choice creates the overall tone of a text. They continue to employ various strategies to determine the meanings of increasingly complex words in informational texts. They expand their understanding of organizational structure by comparing how different authors choose to structure their work. They understand that an author’s opinions may not be directly stated and that an author’s point of view or opinion may differ from those of other authors.

6

As students continue to expand their knowledge of academic and technical words, they interpret figurative and connotative meanings of words as well. They begin to analyze how particular parts of the text function within the whole. They recognize both an author’s purpose and viewpoint in a text and explain how they are conveyed.

7

Students’ analysis of informational texts deepens as they consider the impact of an author’s specific word choice on meaning and tone. They analyze how a text’s structure impacts meaning, understanding that authors structure their work according to what they seek to convey. Students analyze an author’s position and how an author approaches a topic differently than others.

8

Students continue to analyze the effect of an author’s specific word choice on the meaning and tone of an informational text, broadening their analysis to include interpretation of allusions and analogies. They analyze a text’s structure with greater detail, considering the contribution of particular sentences in developing key concepts in the text. Their consideration of author’s viewpoint now includes recognizing bias and analyzing an author’s response to conflicting evidence and viewpoints.

CORE PROGRESS LEARNING PROGRESSION FOR READING - BUILT FOR THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS

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Grade Level

Expectation

9

Students’ analysis of language gains sophistication as they consider the overall effect an author’s word choice has on the meaning and tone of a text. They also begin to analyze how rhetorical devices are used to advance an author’s purpose. They understand how a particular section of a text can expand or refine an author’s idea or claim.

10

Students’ consideration of craft and structure broadens to include the cumulative impact of an author’s word choice and use of rhetorical devices on an informational text’s meaning and tone. They analyze informational texts intended for various audiences to determine how language is used to achieve different purposes or advance viewpoints. Their continued analysis of how an author’s ideas are developed by particular portions of the text prepares them to evaluate a text’s overall structure.

11

Students evaluate an author's language choices, determining whether rhetorical devices further or detract from the author's purpose or viewpoint. They analyze how an author develops and refines the meaning of a key term over the course of a text, and they evaluate how organizational structure affects clarity of ideas. They understand how an author's assumptions about readers influence a text, and they evaluate the extent to which an author's argument is convincing.

12

Through the study of texts with particularly effective rhetoric or powerful language, students become adept at evaluating the overall effectiveness of a broad array of complex informational texts. They evaluate the impact of choices an author makes regarding language, structure, and aesthetics and how these choices further or detract from the author's purpose or viewpoint.


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Appendix G: Organization of Skill Areas within the Four Domains

Domain Heading Skill Area

Foundational Skills Print Concepts

• Directionality• Letters and Words• Word Length• Word Borders• Visual Discrimination /

Alphabetic Principle• Alphabetic Sequence• Print Features

Phonological Awareness

• Rhyming and Word Families• Blending, Counting, and

Segmenting Syllables• Blending and Segmenting• Distinguishing between Long

and Short Vowel Sounds• Isolating Initial, Final, and

Medial Phonemes• Adding/Substituting Phonemes

Phonics and Word Recognition

• Spelling-Sound Correspondences: Consonants

• Spelling-Sound Correspondences: Vowels

• Regular and Irregular Spellings / High-Frequency words

• Inflectional Endings / Affixes• Syllables

Fluency

• Purpose of Reading/Reading with Comprehension

• Reading Rate WCPM• Prosody• Repair Strategies

Language Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

• Real-Life Word Connections and Applications

• Word Reference Materials• Antonyms• Synonyms• Structural Analysis• Word Relationships• Context Clues• Vocabulary in Context• Multiple-Meaning Words• Figures of Speech• Connotation


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Domain Heading Skill Area

Literature Key Ideas and Details

• Character• Setting• Plot• Theme• Summary• Inference and Evidence

Craft and Structure

• Point of View• Structure of Literary Text• Word Meaning• Author’s Word Choice and

Figurative Language• Connotation

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas• Modes of Representation• Analysis and Comparison

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

• Range of Reading• Development of Independence

Informational Text Key Ideas and Details

• Main Idea and Details• Inference and Evidence• Prediction• Sequence• Compare and Contrast• Cause and Effect• Summary• Connections and Relationships

Craft and Structure

• Text Features• Author’s Purpose and

Perspective• Word Meaning• Connotation• Organization• Author’s Word Choice and

Figurative Language

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas• Modes of Representation• Argumentation• Analysis and Comparison

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

• Range of Reading• Development of Independence


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Domain: Literature

Heading: Key Ideas and Details

Skill Area: Inference and Evidence

Relevant CCSS Anchor Standard: CC RI.CCR 1Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Grade CCSS Grade-level Standard Skill Statement

K1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about a story's key details (e.g., what is the cow doing in Goodnight Moon?)

11. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

Answer simple questions about a story's key details

2

1. Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

Ask and answer who, what, where, when, why, and how questions about key details in a literary text

Draw simple conclusions about characters, settings, and major events in a literary text using details from text and illustrations

3

1. Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

Ask and answer questions about literary text and refer to the text to support answers

Use textual details to draw simple conclusions about characters, settings, or events in text (e.g., conclude the character is angry because he stomped his feet)

4

1. Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Make inferences about characters’ actions, traits, and motives based on details found in a story or play

Cite textual details and examples to support inferences and explanations about a literary text’s meaning (e.g., conclude the poet thinks the tree leaves are pretty because she says the colors make her smile)

5

1. Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Cite accurate evidence from a literary text to support inferences and to explain the text’s explicit meaning

Use textual evidence to distinguish between valid and invalid conclusions drawn in and from literary texts (e.g., note when a character makes an incorrect conclusion)

6

1. Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Explain the basis for conclusions drawn about literary texts and revise conclusions based on new evidence in the text

Appendix H: Progression of Skills and Mapping to CCSS for Inference and Evidence


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Domain: Literature

Heading: Key Ideas and Details

Skill Area: Inference and Evidence

Relevant CCSS Anchor Standard: CC RI.CCR 1Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Grade CCSS Grade-level Standard Skill Statement

7

1. Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Draw conclusions about characters, theme, and situations based on analysis of textual details

Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of a literary text

8

1. Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Draw conclusions based on analysis of textual details and patterns (e.g., draw a conclusion about an author's intent by analyzing tone, word choice, and connotation)

Cite the strongest textual evidence to support analysis of a literary text

9

1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Cite strong and sufficient textual evidence to support analysis of a literary text

Analyze significant ideas and supporting details in a literary text to draw larger conclusions about the text’s meaning

10

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of a literary text

Evaluate and weigh complex ideas, textual details, and motifs in order to arrive at conclusions about the meaning and/or significance of literary texts

11

1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

Select textual evidence based on evaluation of its strength, completeness, and relevance to the analysis of a literary text

Use a critical lens (e.g., philosophical, biographical) or secondary sources to interpret a literary text and draw conclusions about the text’s meaning and/or significance

12

Determine where a literary text's meaning is ambiguous, unclear, or open to interpretation, and cite textual evidence to support this determination

Synthesize ideas from close reading of literary texts and secondary sources to draw complex conclusions about text meaning and/or significance


34

Prerequisites for the Grade 3 Foundational Skill: Decode increasingly difficult multisyllable words by identifying syllable patterns

(e.g., transportation)

Grade Heading Skill Area Skill

Grade 2Phonics and Word Recognition

Syllables

Use knowledge of regularly spelled syllable patterns to decode multisyllable grade-level words (e.g., read a word such as even by picking the correct syllable breaks)


SyllablesSegment syllables in VC-CV words to decode basic two-syllable patterns in words


SyllablesSegment printed words into syllables, making sure each syllable contains a vowel sound

Kindergarten Phonological Awareness

Blending, Counting, and Segmenting

Syllables

Blend, count, and segment syllables in spoken words (e.g., from an oral prompt, students identify that tar-get makes the word target)

Appendix I: Example of how skills serve as prerequisites for other skills


35

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AckowledgementsThe following experts have advised Renaissance in the development of Star Assessments®.

Contributing AdvisorMargaret Heritage, Ph.D., is assistant director for professional development at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at UCLA. Her current work focuses on the development of academic language for EL students and forma-tive assessment, including teachers’ use of formative assessment evidence. She has made numerous presentations on these topics all over the United States, in Europe, and in India.

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